edwin108

Are your battery terminals clean? If not, try cleaning off the corrosion with a wire brush. Also, are the connections tight?

Matt's 95 Stang

this. Will help you in trouble shooting if you can eliminate the alt and batterys as being bad.

Matthew

Derf00

The test you're talking about is very old-school and was very easy with cars that had the solenoid mounted on the firewall.

Our starters and solenoids are mounted in such a way the only real way to get at them is from UNDER the car. Not safe to stick a screwdriver in there and try to jump the connections on the solenoid while you are surrounded by metal.

Test the other stuff first. My bet is on the Battery first, alternator second (as in the alternator is not charging and causing the battery to die).

Nuke

Even a bad battery can have a no-load terminal voltage that appears normal. Load the battery with the lights and high beams; as much as you can; and recheck the terminal voltage. If it's below 12 volts, then it definitely will be a good bit lower under the demand from the starter enough to not pull in the solenoid. My wife's OE battery in her '06 read 12.6 volts sitting on the garage floor and when I put 1 old headlight on it to load it the terminal voltage went to 0.

Rshustler1

If its not your battery I'd check the alternator . I had my alternator cause my smart junction box to go out resulting in a new sjb and new alternator totaling over $700 when my sjb went out my car wouldn't start but would show like there's power

Red8310

Had a problem similar on my 92 vert..

Mine just did 1 click - nothing. Starter was seized up. But if you have multiple clicks its probably going to just be your battery.. Can always try to clean terminals/jump

Gloves

You are all right!
It's not the mustang. It's the Walmart battery!

The battery had caused the terminals to corrode EVEN though I had taken them off scrubbed them down with a brass brush and baking soda and coated them with Vaseline 1 month prior!


So the mechanic said that battery is faulty and is emitting fumes that promote corrosion causing a part of my terminal clamp (the fastener part) to have rusted right off.

He replaced it with an aftermarket terminal clamp and now she starts like the day I got her.


OBVIOUSLY, i'll be getting another battery. What a POS!

Art161

You experienced off-gassing from the battery. Sometimes the root cause is simply a bad battery and sometimes it is a voltage regulator that is allowing the charging voltage from the alternator to get too high. I would suggest that you test the voltage at the battery posts with the engine running as a test of the voltage regulator.

BTW, I would not use jumper cables for anything except as a last resort, unless they have protective electronic circuitry, such as some jumper cables sold under the Michelin name. In today's cars, there can be voltage surges when a car is jump started from another car. This can damage the electronics in both the car being jumped and the car providing the jump. The electronics may not fail immediately, but could be weakened and fail in the future. I noticed that AAA road service vehicles in my vicinity generally carry a portable jump starter to avoid voltage surges.

Nuke

As Art161 stated, the battery is offgasing. Anytime you have corrosion (usually the fluffy white/green crud) on the terminals it's indicative of a crack at the terminal(s). Even a hairline crack is all it takes. Some batteries will last quite awhile in that condition but it degrades your terminal hardware rather quickly.